


Small Stars, Falling

by Marie Blackpool (LynnC)



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5638303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynnC/pseuds/Marie%20Blackpool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia sees something between Han and Luke, finally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Stars, Falling

Leia found it disturbing that small events could have such enormous consequences: that shooting stars foretold the death of kings, that solitary assassins demolished governments, that sunspots over Coruscant triggered hurricanes. Or that the look a man once gave a woman, saying he felt more for her than friendship, could end her self-sufficient peace for so many years.

Having had experience with them, small problems worried her. But a ship that had gone missing for a short while was probably insignificant, she argued with herself. And they had eventually found Luke in the scout, that was the important thing. Problem solved, or nearly. It was going to turn out to be just another technician’s or tactician’s error, she was sure. In her relief, she was even capable of forgetting for a moment that the hypothetical technician would have to have been the pilot, Luke, and the tactician who had sent him on the mission was her.

Because she was tired and jumpy and only had one brother, she wasn’t capable of taking this near fatality lightly, though. Something about it made her shiver inside and check outside for the coming storm. She knew there was more here than a simple botched mission. Somewhere, a star was falling with royalty in its sights.

She watched the medical droids put Luke back together, and asked the rescue team the obvious questions: was it the flight plan they had calculated for the rendezvous, could the intel have been at fault, could the ship have been damaged in a firefight with pirates, was it sabotage. The evidence was equivocal. He had been pulled from the cockpit on the brink of death with radiation burns and bruising consistent with explosions in space, but the damage to his craft didn’t seem severe enough to account for all his injuries. Had he been kidnapped, tortured, and then left out in space to die? He had been found adrift in an asteroid field in a region of space known for its odd energy emissions; the astrophysics team suggested he could have sustained all his injuries in the ship itself, if he was hit by peculiar space debris and a flare of radiation. His nav comp could have been wiped, his orientation lost, his drive and thrusters damaged until they functioned only at sublight speeds. In many scenarios, this little mystery was explainable with nothing but bad luck.

Leia didn’t believe in bad luck. She couldn’t quite believe Luke was all right, either. Fundamentally, she believed theirs was a malevolent universe that had it in for everyone she loved. It preyed on her, imagining him tortured for their secrets. Luke, of all people, would resist to the death to keep the rest of them safe. With a clever Jedi trick, he would block the pain until his body was used up and finally expired.

When he regained consciousness, she was waiting.

“Luke? Do you remember anything? Do you know what happened?”

He stared at her, blinking away a week’s drug treatment and effects of the bacta healing. “Leia?”

“I’m here, we’re all here,” she said, gesturing at Han and Chewie behind her. Your family. She reached for his hand and then hesitated to touch it; it still looked raw. “You’re going to be fine now.”

“You had us scared this time, kid,” Han said gruffly. “Next time I’ll take you in the Falcon, ok?”

A small smile competed with the weariness on Luke’s face. His skin was red and shiny from the bacta working on his burns. He looked sunburnt, a strange look on someone who’d grown up on Tatooine and could barely tan.

“Do you know what happened out there?” Leia asked again.

“I don’t remember anything.” Luke grew paler as he admitted it. His voice sounded thin and frightened, like a little boy’s. It made her want to hold him. Han shifted behind her.

“Did you meet the courier? Did you ever get to Feloris IV?” Luke had been carrying an important drug serum for the people of Feloris II, and for complex diplomatic reasons, it had to be smuggled in via a neighboring planet.

“I don’t know. I think so…” Luke’s eyes widened and then shut again tiredly.

“Leia, let him rest,” Han whispered, touching her arm. “We can wait. He might remember more when he’s not so groggy.”

The medical droid was rolling towards her to say the same, she supposed.

“I just want to know what happened,” she murmured, and allowed herself to be pulled away.

But Luke said the same frustrating nothing the next time and the next time, till he was discharged from the medical unit.

“Is he likely to remember anything more?” she asked the doctor.

“It is difficult to know. The bacta course sometimes has this effect, when radiation is involved. Or it could be a response to the trauma, his own psychology protecting him from the painful memories. In time his memory may return, but we cannot know.”

“Can you be sure his brain isn’t damaged?”

“We have completed all the requisite scans, Councilor,” the droid said. “There is no damage.”

“Keep me informed, doctor.” She added, “Whenever you learn anything new. I don’t mind being interrupted for this.”

“You will be notified as usual, Councilor. Commander Skywalker requires rest to complete the healing.”

Rest. She thought about it as she lay awake beside Han staring into the night ahead. It was hard to remember what a good night’s sleep did for a body. Sometimes she gave up and went to the recreation rooms to exercise, or when she could talk Han into sex, that put her out eventually. Tonight she was too oppressed to do anything except lie there. She was afraid that hidden under Luke’s amnesia was a story with military or intelligence implications. Against her closed eyelids, she planned contingencies, estimated risk factors, and prepared a draft of a message to Feloris, phrased delicately but firmly. There was only so much she could do, not knowing, though.

Sleep still refused to visit.

“Han.”

“Hmmm.” Not yet asleep either, he rolled onto his back.

“Have you talked to Luke about what happened?”

“No. Haven’t had a chance yet.”

“Do you think he remembers anything? That he hasn’t told us?”

A long pause. “Do you think he wouldn’t tell us?” Han asked carefully. He was a dark mound beside her, features invisible.

“You know what he can be like… if it’s something he’s afraid will scare us, or hurt us…” There was no good way to say it.

After another silence, Han said, “You think he was picked up by someone and worked over, don’t you?”

She couldn’t reply. She wasn’t sure if she was suffering from plain paranoia, or the intuition that made her a good statesman. There was no way to explain the approaching upheaval that ached in her bones. She and Han had never been on the same wavelength when they were planetside. The adrenaline didn’t flow for Han in offices and corridors the way it did for her.

Han said, “I didn’t think there was any good evidence for that yet. We didn’t find anything on or in the ship. And I talked to the doc, too.”

“I think Luke is less afraid of worrying you than me. If you can find out anything, see if he does remember anything about the accident…” She left the rest alone.

Because she wanted to, she read willingness in his silence. The moment grew into the length of the night, during which they both stared at the ceiling and at their worst nightmares come true. They didn’t touch each other. Leia found no comfort in having Han’s company. Despite her love for Han, she often wondered if she might sleep better alone.

~ ~ ~

Leia left Luke alone to recuperate; meanwhile, she became embroiled in a brush war within a small system joining the New Republic. She hadn’t forgotten his mystery disappearance, though, and stole a moment to send diplomatic greetings and a discreet inquiry to their Feloris agent. When she saw her brother moving slowly across the hangar bay, looking peaked, she felt the recurrent twinge in her chest. Was this my fault? How many killed, maimed, missing in action were my fault?

She watched Han greet Luke beside the Falcon, and Luke’s tired face lit like a sunrise seen from space over the shoulder of a planet. She paused to marvel at the existence of beauty in the universe. Han jumped down from the catwalk and strode to Luke’s side, gesturing animatedly about whatever mechanical disaster he was tinkering with. Luke laughed with intimate warmth. Han clapped him on the shoulder, and his hand lingered into a clasp; she could see the fingers tightening even from where she stood and knew his nervous emotion needed an outlet in touch. Han always did have problems talking without his hands. Trust me, talk to me, don’t leave, his hand was saying to Luke. She could read it far away.

She watched their heads bent together against the bay noise, feeling as if she were an eavesdropper despite not hearing a word, until an aide rushed up and summoned her away. Han’s hand was still on Luke, and she fleetingly wished it were her own. She wished even more fervently that her time were her own to spend on the ones she loved.

The days tumbled over each other in crisis after crisis until her desk calendar’s statements turned unreal. Not usually superstitious, she wondered if it were the current celestial alignment over Coruscant; she herself had surely been born under an evil bureaucratic starsign. She fell into bed beside a sleeping Han after midnight every night, slept for a few short hours, and was jerked out of her dreams by pages or by Han getting up at dawn for his job on the Southside reconstruction project.

She saw Luke’s medical status on her daily reports, and it indicated he was healing well, still not on active duty again, but showing no permanent damage. His memory was reported as “uncertain.” Or perhaps that meant the medics were uncertain as to the state of his memory. She found the wording odd, but had no time to interrogate the medical droids.

Eventually she intersected Han at a state dinner for visiting ambassadors from the Sictus system. The system contained several rich planets with fuel and agricultural treasures they were happy to sell in the New Republic share markets. The state dinner reflected the Republic’s interest in propitiating the new allies with its sumptuous six courses. All the military and political top brass were in attendance, mandatorily enjoying themselves. She and Han had been seated together, while Luke ended up a few chairs away, beside one of the ambassador’s shy daughters. He was looking healthier, although still moving more slowly than normal. She and Han both watched him, sneaking glances during polite conversation with Ambassador Xsycykale and his wife.

When they had a moment to speak privately to one another, she whispered, “Have you talked to Luke about the accident yet?”

He took a bite of his sorbet and looked evasive. “Yeah, I did.”

“Does he remember anything else? About what happened?”

Another bite savored with disgusting relish from someone who had eaten four courses already; but now he was looking guilty but determined, like a child with dirty hands caught snacking on cookie dough before dinner who had no intention of eating his vegetables anytime in the next millennium. Come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten them during course three. “I promised him I wouldn’t tell you,” he finally said.

“What? You mean he remembered something?” She did a double-take. “What? Why can’t you tell me?” She felt betrayal slice into her gut, so sharp it was almost painless.

“I promised. He asked me to.” He sneaked one remorseful look at her and then looked down.

“So, does this mean he was picked up—?” She forgot the hurt, facing the implications. Why else would Luke try to protect her?

“Don’t go there, Leia,” Han said quietly. He met her gaze again and shook his head. “Don’t think it. And he’s back, safe now, so try to forget about it.”

“I can’t, not if it’s a military or diplomatic incident! And it is, by definition, if a commander on a peaceful aid mission disappears en route and re-appears weeks later, hurt in a damaged ship!” She almost strangled in the effort to lower her voice despite her outrage. The green-tinted Ambassador had returned to the table and now eyed them curiously from his eyestalks. “He’s my brother, Han.” She said it sadly, a forsaken prayer. “What can I do for him?”

Diplomacy forgotten, Han put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, the embrace awkward against the table edge and his dress uniform’s decorations. A few place settings away, she saw Luke look at them curiously; she looked away.

“Is he ok, at least?”

Han dropped his arm, and shrugged a little. “He will be. It wasn’t my idea not to tell you.”

She never imagined it had been. What a strange thing to say.

She drew on reservoirs of strength she could never find for her personal crises and smiled across the table at the ambassador’s wife. “It’s a sorbet made from a local fruit, grown in the mountains. Do you like it? I’m told it’s something like your staccatato fruit.”

~ ~ ~

Leia invited Luke to lunch the next day. They met on the balcony of a quiet café where they were treated to rare Coruscant sunshine. Leia wasn’t enjoying it much, because the watery blue light made Luke look sickly.

“How are you feeling?” she asked him.

“Fine. Much better.” He looked as if he’d expected the question. As if he knew she knew he had been avoiding her, and now it was time to pay the dues.

“No side effects? What about your memory?”

He peered at her sharply and glanced away. “Things are still a little hazy. I’m pretty sure I met with the courier. I remember talking to someone on another ship and orbiting a red planet.”

“That sounds like Feloris IV.” She nodded. This matched the initial mission plan: Meet with the contact on a commercial starliner above the gas giant and hand off the serum in a crowded restaurant. The only tricky part of the plan had been justifying the docking request and navigating the stellar region’s unusual gas clouds in the asteroid belt.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Looking at the planet. No, my console. Talking to someone.” He shook his head at his salad plate.

“Someone?”

“It might have been my distress call.”

An odd inflection in his voice made Leia peer at him. She grimaced, and was distracted by imagining that call for help—help that hadn’t come for a week, when his oxygen had almost run out and he happened to drift across the shipping line traffic.

“Do you think we should do any more investigation? Should we send someone back there to look around?” Her first duty was to the security and safety of the Felorisians and other New Republic members, and her screwy family relationships had to be a secondary concern.

He frowned, his lips thin with concentration. He knew the threat of a compromised memory and missing time.

“No,” he said finally. “I think I probably just hit some debris and got banged around.” He didn’t look at her as he said it. But he sounded convincing.

“Luke—” She couldn’t finish it; she had to respect the boundaries existing among the three of them, especially when they looked like electrified fences. Even when she was on the wrong side of one. “If you ever want to tell me anything off-the-record, you know…”

He flushed; his reaching look said, Of course, silly. Of course I would.

They spent the rest of the meal talking about politics and planets they’d like to retire and garden on someday, planets that weren’t Coruscant or Tatooine. Luke reminded her that Han had always said he wanted to die in space. She had no answer to that, and found it strange that it was Luke who remembered this, until much later.

~ ~ ~

Still unable to shake off her foreboding, she asked C3PO to join her in between meetings the following day.

“How can I help, Councilor Organa?” he asked prissily. He had been made an official protocol aide to the consulate on Coruscant, and the role was going to his circuit-filled head, in Han’s opinion. Leia smiled, remembering a colorful Solo rant on the subject.

“3PO, I’d like you to look into my brother’s accident. I want you to pull together all the information you can find — medical reports, the repair records, the log files, gossip in the halls… go ahead and ask him, if you want. I want to know what happened and what didn’t, so I can make a recommendation for the next trip to Feloris. I’d like to put this case to rest.”

“Surely you have all the reports compiled so far, Councilor?” He sounded dubious. “I fail to see how I can provide you with any more information than you already have.”

“I want an objective outsider to synthesize all the data sources and reach an independent conclusion. Specifically with respect to the situation on Feloris—we’ve had word that they did receive the serum. It wasn’t a mission failure, but there’s still a mystery here. For my own peace of mind, I’d like someone else to look at it before I close the file.”

“I’m flattered you thought of me, Councilor.” She had known he would be. Too flattered to ask whether a tactical droid wouldn’t run a better analysis program.

“And, 3PO—do a little more discreet digging, if you have to. I think Luke may have remembered something. He’s been talking to General Solo about it.”

“Shall I just ask him for an update to his mission report?”

“You could do that…” She flashed only as much delicate innuendo as he might care to see and not enough to make herself too embarrassed.

“I see. And should I speak with General Solo as well?”

“No.”

“Ah.”

“I think they’re meeting for a drink after their work shift tomorrow.”

She left it there and 3PO went away, his gears almost audible as he chewed at her request.

She spent the next week trying to forget about Luke’s unwillingness to talk to her. She hardly saw anything of Han. His work in the construction project had been keeping him away from their quarters more and more. Exhaustion and concrete dust sifted onto his face and clothes and made him look grey and old. When their paths crossed in a corridor one night, she paused to fold him in a tight embrace, without saying a word. He clutched at her; it felt like a mutual apology for all things beyond their control. It said hello and goodbye.

~ ~ ~

“I’ve collated all the available information, Councilor,” 3PO told her.

“Ok, summarize and give me your recommendation first.” Leia wasn’t expecting any true surprises, but she sat down at her  
desk anyway.

“It’s not a terribly complicated case, Councilor. The problem centers on three anomalies: the disappearance of the commander’s X-wing, which arrived two days late at the post-mission rendezvous; the damage the ship and commander sustained; and the empty flight logs and data files on the X-wing. However, given the successful delivery of the serum, we must assume the accident, if there was one, occurred after the scheduled meeting with the courier. The report from the Feloris courier confirms that Commander Skywalker met him as planned and there was apparently nothing unusual about him at the time.

“The Feloris space sector is notorious for mysterious phenomena. There have been five recorded disappearances in the last twenty Felorisian solar years. Shipping lanes have been diverted as a result of the asteroid belt and gas flares. In fact, there was a flare recorded by the Felorisian astronomers during the week in question. An automated survey ship vanished, after reporting heavy turbulence, radiation bursts, and asteroid debris. All of which is consistent with Commander Skywalker’s injuries and the damage sustained by his ship and data files.”

“So you think it was a plain accident, like everyone else?”

“I’m afraid there is no solid evidence otherwise. Furthermore, there is no reason to suspect antagonistic agency; the intelligence reports from the last agents haven’t indicated any malign intent towards the New Republic. I can’t generate a simulation model based on current assumptions that will derive any positive benefit from harm to Commander Skywalker in this sector. My recommendation is to close the file and not pursue any further investigation at this time.” 3PO said it loftily, the ability to dictate human behavior coming far too easily.

Solid evidence, she thought. She had only a hint from Han, an elusive suspicion fed by Luke’s choice of Han as sole confidante. If Luke didn’t want to talk to her, there really wasn’t any reason to pursue the case. She had to trust him that it wasn’t a matter requiring further state involvement.

“The technicians repairing the ship didn’t find any evidence of tampering or blaster burns?”

“I asked R2 to look into the repairs. He was really quite gratified, since of course he felt he would have averted the disaster in the first place if Commander Skywalker had taken him and the X-wing, instead of that long-range contraption. Yesterday he passed on the files from the core dump of the ship, which he hasn’t finished segmenting yet. His initial report confirms the technician’s findings on first survey: the files are corrupted.”

“Thanks, 3PO. This was useful. Was there anything else?”

There was a pregnant mechanoidal pause; then 3PO said, “Commander Skywalker and General Solo met for a drink two nights ago, as you informed me. I happened to be in the bistro arranging a cocktail party for the visiting ambassador from Domines and Taurus. The dietary requirements of the Dominaine race are quite strict, and require a complete overhaul of the culinary programming of the dining staff.”

“Did they have a nice drink, 3PO?” She didn’t even want to hear this; she wasn’t spying on her family.

“The conversation was not about the accident, but about the construction project, an accident on-site which Commander Skywalker predicted after a site visit, General Solo’s installation of a new cloaking technology on the Falcon, and his intention of testing it as soon as Commander Skywalker can join him, and Commander Skywalker’s insomnia.”

“Thank you, 3PO. It does sound like they had a nice drink,” she said dryly. And like some problems were hereditary.

“I didn’t feel it was necessary to interrupt their conversation,” he said huffily.

“Yes, that’s fine, 3PO. Thanks for the report.” She was already filing it in her head: mystery still unsolved, but not dangerous. Luke’s missing week was an insignificant loss, it seemed.

~ ~ ~

Leia waited for R2’s final analysis of the core dumps before closing up the file, but she had already mentally put the case to bed. She went through his transmission report and verified that it was all as expected: garbage files, in the expected configurations, sizes, and timestamps. The shape of the data was ordinary, even if the content was lost.

All as expected, with one anomaly: a data file not produced by the automatic logging sensors. It had been overlooked by the preliminary data scans done on the ship, for some reason. Before looking at it, she detoured through the filed reports to verify that Han hadn’t mentioned it in his repair report. It was a personal log file, and as such, had been recorded on data sectors better protected by the ship’s safeguard mechanisms. Such files were unusual on board spacecraft, since most pilots recorded personal logs on private datapads or droid recorders. According to R2, this one was still intact. The encryption on the log file was based on a simple code that she could override with her security clearance. She played the file.

“I can’t get any power to the thrusters.” Luke’s voice spoke softly. “I’ve been drifting for about a day now, and I’ve got air left for a week at most, without full life support online. I wish R2 was here.” Leia closed her eyes and was there in the cockpit with him, facing a long, lonely death. He coughed and she started. “I really wish I’d gone with Han’s plan and waited for him to take me to the rendezvous. We could have had a nice meal at that starliner restaurant, anyway.”

Leia felt the planet teetering on its axis under her, the continent shift, the architecture adjust, and her chair tremble. Her intuition refused to spare her the revelation she saw coming, even when it was not the one she had been looking for.

“If I don’t make it back, I want to leave this message for Han.” She gagged. Her body drew conclusions even faster than her stumbling brain. “Han, I’m sorry I never told you the truth. I didn’t want to be so… unfriendly, for so long. I know I was avoiding you and Leia. And now I won’t have the chance to tell you how I feel, to your face. I knew from…”

Leia stopped the file playing, belated self-defense. She didn’t need to hear more. If she hadn’t been so focused on paperwork, on ignoring her own dying romance, and on Luke’s days missing… She refused the knowledge that battered at her with tight fists of guilt and blame. Fate couldn’t be prevented, fate was always only true. There was no arguing out of it, there was only damage control after the fatal event.

Panic waiting to consume her, she worried first about the press coverage; she would need to speak to Mon Mothma, figure out how to manage this situation. It wasn’t just her crisis, it was a political one, too. There was no telling how their allies—or their own people!—would react to this new alignment of relationships.

And yet, it really was her crisis. She stared at the floor, where the marks from so many guests in her office had started to wear out the beige floor covering. She would have preferred red or blue, but her office wasn’t actually hers to decorate, just like her life wasn’t really hers to live. She was tired of having so many people walk in and out, with their messes for her to manage. Admittedly, she was better at managing theirs than her own and even enjoyed it. She knew she was lying to herself: she could have had blue, but she hadn’t cared enough to ask.

Oh, but she and Han had seemed so right at first. Even when it was just a game to break up the stress, there had been a core of suitability to them. The princess who tamed the pirate—except, she never had. And she wasn’t a princess anymore. It looked like she had been mistaken all this time about their fairy tale, just like she had been mistaken about the relationship between Luke and Han.

She imagined them together—or was she remembering? She wasn’t even sure now—their eyes on each other, their sideways shy smiles, their intimate touches. When they were together, they were lit with an energy of potentiality she knew she didn’t remember ever feeling herself. Recognizable as fate, she knew them to be true together. It was possible Han didn’t know it yet, but Luke had realized it. Luke had remembered realizing it, too.

The need for action overtook her; rising from her desk, she decided this was Luke’s tape and she should pass it back to him and keep it out of the final records. She printed out the files onto a data card, her hand shaking as she pressed the keys. She deleted the sectors R2 had identified on the original core dump. Hefting the data tape, she felt a moment’s indecision; if she listened to the rest of it, perhaps there would be an answer to what had actually happened to Luke out there.

She pocketed it instead and headed for the canteen, where she expected Luke and Han to be having their regular after-dinner huddle. It was late, it would be a bar crowd now. She had to push her way in the door; there was some celebration going on, a round of applause rising like rain on a metal deck as she craned her head around the pilots and their waving tankards. She evaded a dozen invitations to join them before she spied Luke and Han alone at a table, drinks forgotten in front of them. They were a quiet tableau in the center of the noise.

Luke’s arm was on Han’s across the table, holding his forearm to comfort (whom, she wondered) and speaking a second language to express what he couldn’t say with words. He, too, used his hands to say the important things. The tape wasn’t needed by anyone now, it appeared.

She froze, breathing hard, hearing her lungs fill and blood pound under the noise of the crowd. She saw spots flicker before her eyes, little stars winking in and out. She could either faint, or let her panic go, along with the fairy tale. Like a mortal blow, she barely felt it end, apart from the release. She realized she was free now and safe again; she could not be hurt anymore by this chapter of her life. The look a man gave a woman once, as the carbonite took him, had been less special than she thought.

And then Luke looked up and saw her. His eyes lit with happiness, then softened into shock as he read her face, and finally melted into ordinary but beautiful love.

Leia was still reeling, but alive. She managed to smile back at him. The falling star had passed right on by, no soothsayer or Jedi had taken any special note, and in the end no one had perished.

But then, there was no more royalty, either.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally in Bystander.


End file.
